Delsin Carter, Globe-Trotter for Mayo Medical Laboratories

By Mayo Medical Laboratories • October 27, 2017

Delsin Carter, International Regional Service Representative for Mayo Medical Laboratories, brings leading-edge medical testing to distant corners of the world by training staff at hospitals, clinics, and laboratories in Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia to prepare and ship samples to Rochester for testing.

“Mayo Medical Laboratories provides testing that even many hospitals in developed countries don’t have,” Carter says. “The results we generate enable physicians to treat patients in the most effective way.”

Clients generally use Mayo Medical Laboratories to fill gaps in the testing they offer. Some can’t afford to build a lab, and some can’t afford to buy the latest specialty equipment. However, most can afford to send a sample to Mayo when they need an answer. In many cases, a client as far away as Asia can ship a specimen to Mayo Clinic and get results in as little as three or four days. Carter sees lab services as an excellent form of outreach from Mayo Clinic to distant patients and providers. “We make a piece of modern health care available to the world,” he says.

Carter graduated from the Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences Phlebotomy Technician Program four years ago. Before entering the Phlebotomy Program, Carter worked as a human tissue culture specialist at a St. Louis, Missouri, biotech firm, but he hoped to work at Mayo Clinic. “It is a mecca of medical innovation and quality patient care,” says Carter. “The Phlebotomy Program was a wonderful stepping stone to where I am now.”

Carter started at Mayo after he completed the 10-week program. With a bachelor’s degree in cell and molecular biology from Missouri State University, an emergency medical technician certificate, and two years of experience in a lab, he started with the hospital clinical laboratory code team. Nine months later, Carter was promoted to technical specialist and put in charge of general coagulation testing for the Rochester campus. He had that position for two years—until July 2016, when he started at Mayo Medical Laboratories.

His job, he says, “is really a unique spot at Mayo Clinic and in health care, with a direct impact on global patient care.”

Carter describes visits to other countries as eye-opening experiences that allow him to share Mayo Clinic’s expertise. “What they don’t have is often most striking,” he says. “Abroad, you try to be as gracious as you can and make suggestions for safer practices. You learn to recognize the limitations but, in the end, a little bit of Mayo rubs off on all with whom we interact.”

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This post was authored by the Marketing Team at Mayo Medical Laboratories.